My Gift
by Talon skydragon
Summary: A sad musing by starlight over his fate and the one gift Miroku has to give, a gift that Sango will never know. Mir's pov, oneshot. M/S


Author's Note: Found myself strangely compelled to write this--for some reason, I have an absolute craving for writing narratives lately, and the result was this. Inspired partly by what Miroku says in part of the Inuyasha movie (which I just finished seeing tonight--fantastic ^__^) and partly by trying to go deeper into his character in new ways, this is a short little piece told first person from Miroku's point of view. 'Twas a fun change of mindset from my other fics. ^_^ Hopefully the layered metaphor won't come off as stupid or too confusing or too sappy or too unoriginal..I tried. ;-; 

Disclaimer: I wish I owned Miroku or anyone else from Inuyasha, but alas, I don't. ;_; 

**My Gift**

I wish I had more to give you than this, but I don't. I wish I could give you words, but I can't; I wish I could give you things that would make you smile, things you could hold in your hand, things most other men could give. A gift that you could understand. But you mean too much to me for that. You mean too much to me, and so the gift I give is one that you will never know. For it is in your not understanding that my gift holds its worth, and I give the greatest gift of all, though it hurts me every moment of every day. 

I give you all I have: 

Nothing. 

Sometimes I cry at night when I look at you, Sango. I watch you through the fire while you sleep, watch the warm, flickering light dance across your face. I watch you even when the fire dies and only the stars are left, their feathery light slipping through the trees to settle over you like a blanket of angel wings, and even then you glow with a warmth that's all your own. But the warmth never reaches me and I cry. 

It is on those cold, lonely star-filled nights like tonight that I look at you, pretending you can hear my thoughts, and desperately wish I didn't have such self-control. No, you didn't hear me wrong, my Sango, even though you didn't hear me; I wish that once, just once, I could be free to give in to impulse and instinct, to follow the moment and see where it leads without a thought to the future, but I can't. And I'm ashamed of myself for being so selfish as to wish I could. For you see, the reason I cannot keep my hands off you is not because I lack restraint, but because I have it. 

I wish--I wish--oh, Sango, please know how sorry I am. Please know I don't mean to hurt you. I'm doing this because it's the only way, the only way to spare you a greater hurt. And it takes all the strength I have to keep on doing it. I didn't used to have such restraint, you know; I used to go through girls like they were nothing, I'll admit that. I lived in the moment, because I was born with less moments than most in which to live. If I meant nothing, then so did they; I didn't care about them--maybe I was afraid to care about them. If I didn't let myself care, then I wouldn't feel the longing that haunts my thoughts so much these days for things I care for but can never have. I didn't care so that I wouldn't have anything to miss when I went. But that was before I met you. It was all before I met you, my star-angel. 

You, you who bear a burden as great as mine but who still goes on, you with the never-ending fervor for life and love and happiness, you with the everlasting smile. I always felt so empty, and I assumed the rest of the world felt the same, but you were different. You've been through pain beyond imagining, yet your spirit is still full of that lovely, gentle warmth. You're not afraid--you took away my fear. There's a fire inside you that can never be put out, like that of the stars themselves, and from the very first moment I knew I would be happy if I could just warm my hands by that fire forever. But that's just it, my Sango--I won't be here forever. 

Now everything I do is so that you won't miss me when I go, and I fear that I do not do enough, even though I do nothing. I treat you like all the girls before I didn't care for, but unlike them it's because I _do_ care. I must seem so thick, ruining every special moment like I do. Or I must seem such a pervert, like some sick, heartless young man who uses girls instead of loves them, but that's why I do it. I do it because you hate it, and I want you to think I'm like that; it's the best way. I know you, my Sango, I know how strong your heart is, and so I use the filthiest tactics I can conceive to keep you at arms length. 

Every time I'm with you I want to touch your lips, not your breast; I want to ask you to bear _our_ children. I want to finish the moment, not shatter it. And so it takes all the control I have to do the latter and not the former. To keep you from getting too close. I cry at night because I can never, ever let myself have you. I wish so hard that it could be different, that I could hold you in my arms and kiss you and love you and live with you, but every day I hold my death in my hands. Naraku's death will be too late, I fear. Every day I feel it barely contained beneath the beads, feel the pull of a drop of nothingness in my grasp, and it is a symbol that stands testament to what I will become. A constant reminder. 

I was born with the mark of nothing on my hand, and nothing is my destiny. I will not die like other men, who return to the earth when they pass on to the other world, but I will vanish as though I never were. I will return to nothingness. Even my soul might be drawn into nothing through the rip, so that I will not exist in the afterlife as well. Sometimes I wonder if I really ever was at all. But if I wasn't, then how can I love you so? Can nothingness love when it isn't real? Maybe it can. But it changes nothing in the end. 

Don't you see, Sango? I can't let you love me back, even though god, I wish you did. I feel so empty without your light. But I could never bear to put you through such pain. I can't let you love me, because all too soon there will be nothing there for you to love. There won't even be a body to mourn; I will be nothing more than a forgotten dream, and people have wasted away their lives chasing after wisps of broken dreams. I will not let you waste yours. That is why I give my gift, and why you may never know if it, because if you understood how much I love you or how much it hurts me then you would break your heart loving nothing at all. That is not the fate for you, my Sango. 

You are the stars, and I am the void. You are light, life, and everything, and I--I am nothing. But the stars are forever in the midst of space, enfolded in the deep, silent embrace of nothing, and that is how I will be there for you, even though you may feel alone. Stars are never alone; the nothing protects the stars, and the stars fill it with light. Maybe nothing really can love, and has been secretly in love with the stars since the dawn of time, even though its not really there. 

And so I give you Nothing: No signs of my love. Even though it stretches on for infinity through the night. And in giving you nothing, I give you myself. The greatest act of love I have to offer is the simple fact that you will never know. I just want you to be happy. 

I do not regret my gift; I will never regret it, even though I curse it and cry every time I see you under the velvet stars. But oh, Sango, I wish I was more. I wish I could live with you, wish I was worthy of you, wish I could give you my love. But I am nothing. 

And you deserve more than that. 


End file.
